"Those with talent who naturalise today can easily leave the country of adoption for greener pasture tomorrow; it is what these developed countries do to keep them there that really matters.

Between the hard-working stateless man who has spent much of his life toiling on Malaysian soil and the corrupt politician who continues to squander our national wealth, it does not take a genius to distinguish who is the real patriot." By Josh Hong in Malaysiakini

VISITORS

WASHINGTON —US President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed into law the Burma Sanctions Renewal Act, thus extending sanctions on the country’s military junta.

The bill, unanimously passed by both the US House of Representative and the Senate last week, renews the current sanctions on imports from Burma for an additional three years and maintains the ban on the import of jade and other gems from Burma.

YANGON: Myanmar’s top junta leader has congratulated new US President Barack Obama on his inauguration, state media reported on Friday in the first official reaction to him assuming office.

The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said Senior General Than Shwe “has sent a message of congratulations to the Honourable Barack Hussein Obama, on the occasion of his inauguration” as president.

BARBARITY IN Burma last week served as a reminder that, with or without President-elect Barack Obama, the global struggle for liberty will rage on long after George W. Bush takes his “freedom agenda” home to Texas.

Some of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy advisers are nearly as impatient to deep-six that policy as they are to bid farewell to its author. They believe that Mr. Bush’s extravagant rhetoric overpromised and underperformed. Dissidents were encouraged and then abandoned. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay mocked Washington’s pretensions to lead or lecture.

John Lewis

Congressman from Georgia

I don’t know whether I will be able to control myself [at the Inauguration]. I will be on the platform, and I’m going to try to keep my balance and not have what I call an out-of-body experience. I want to be able to see down the Mall and past the Washington Monument and get a glimpse of the Lincoln Memorial, where we stood 45 years ago.

LONDON, Jan 9 — Only when Tony Blair popped up on the airwaves did it become clear just how different it is this time. Israel is again at war — yet, unlike 2006 there are no MPs clamouring for Parliament to be recalled. There is no Prime Minister who regards himself as a peacemaker offering his opinion to the world.